Barack Obama, reluctant warrior

President Obama has failed to make good on his threat to Syria so far. | Reuters

And he said little about the escalating death toll and staggering refugee exodus — on Friday, the U.N. said the Syrian conflict had uprooted an estimated 1 million children — focusing narrowly on the potential spread of chemical weapons.

U.S. allies seem altogether exasperated with the president’s caution, stepping up their public pressure over the weekend as private messages and phone calls fluttered back and forth across the Atlantic.

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“We cannot in the 21st century allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity and there are no consequences,” British Foreign Minister William Hague said.

His French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, said there was “no doubt” Assad had used chemical weapons and that “there must be a strong reaction.”

But Britain and France are writing checks their militaries almost certainly can’t cash.

Neither European power is thought capable of hitting Syrian regime targets on its own. Both countries’ air forces stumbled badly during NATO-led operations in Libya, and the political pressure of the monthslong bombing campaign nearly broke the coalition apart.

One key U.S. ally — Israel, which is thought to have launched multiple strikes inside Syria over the past several months — does have the capability, and Israeli officials have made clear that they view Assad’s chemical stockpiles and Soviet-era rocketry as a mortal threat.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined the chorus calling for action. And he went explicitly where Obama did not, pointing to the incredible scale of human suffering: “What happened in Syria was a tragedy and a horrible crime,” he told his Cabinet. “Our hearts go out to the women, children and babies who were attacked so cruelly with weapons of mass destruction.”

“This must not continue. The most dangerous regimes in the world must not be allowed to hold the most dangerous weapon in the world,” he said. “We expect this stop. We are poised and ready. We will always know how to defend ourselves.”

Israel’s concerns, always granted a hearing in Washington, might be enough to sway Congress and the White House.

But none of these allies is sharing its thoughts on what the goal of a possible strike might be: Is it merely to punish Assad for using chemical weapons? Is it to topple him once and for all? Should the United States hit only those units responsible for firing the gas? Or should it take out other regime installations, crater runways and try to eliminate Assad’s planes and helicopters?

Obama hasn’t tipped his hand, either. For two years, he has called repeatedly for Assad to go, but his administration’s tepid actions suggest it doesn’t want the rebels to win outright — its stated preference is for a negotiated solution. And Congress is, if anything, even more leery of extremism within opposition ranks.

But the president may be running out of time before another massacre upends U.S. policy.

On Sunday, Jabhat al-Nusra, a Sunni jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda, vowed to take matters into its own hands and seek vengeance against Alawites, the minority sect of the Assad ruling clan.

“For every chemical rocket that had fallen on our people in Damascus, one of [the Alawite] villages will, by the will of God, pay for it,” Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani said. “On top of that we will prepare a thousand rockets that will be fired on their towns in revenge for the Damascus Ghouta massacre.”

With the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attack approaching, the administration is also keenly aware that if it does intervene in Syria and anything goes wrong, it won’t be Senate hawks like John McCain or Lindsey Graham taking the heat — it will be Barack Obama.